The Revenant

Too many logical inconsistencies to overlook. Sorry.

The Revenant is a masterpiece of grand wilderness adventure film making. Hardly a minute goes by without an awesome vista of spectacular scenery juxtaposed against immense and courageous human struggle. So how could I be so underwhelmed by this movie?

It's a movie about simple revenge... Revenge dominates the plot as well as the subplot. The major story is about trapper and frontier guide Mr. Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is bent on avenging the death of his son. The minor plot finds an old Indian looking to put the hurt on the those who stole his daughter. It takes place sometime around the post Revolutionary war era in the Rocky Mountains where American and French fur traders overlapped.

As mentioned the cinematography is spectacular, the opening scene and especially the grizzly attack was extreme and frightening. There are many other scenes that definitely stir our humanity and make us marvel at the perseverance and endurance of the human mind, body and soul. Honestly most modern men would have curled up and died - myself included.

However, after a half an hour I was bored by the whole thing. The rest of the time I was yearning for a satisfying conclusion. That didn't happen, at least not for me. I was completely unmoved by the final scene and left me thinking: that's it? Mr. Fitzgerald - the antagonist, is such a low life scuzzball you hardly feel anything for him but mild contempt. I had zero emotion after all that struggle. Honestly I've felt more stirring in me after a totally predictable Hallmark Channel movie.

Along the way there were so many logical inconsistencies I could not simply overlook. Muzzle loading flint-lock guns cannot be fired in repeating rapid fire succession. When one plunges into a mountain river and rides the rapids in the dead of winter it's hard to believe hypothermia wouldn't prevent gathering wood and making a fire, yet Glass does all this and much, much more without ever donning a pair of gloves on his hands - I can hardly turn the key in my car in sub-zero temps without gloves. We see Glass walking, or rather stumbling across a vast treeless glacier in which the director makes a point of showing us how desolate and lifeless it was with a wide panoramic shot. In the next scene we see Glass in an ice cave with a burning fire - where did the wood come from? In another scene Glass finds his friend, a kind Pawnee Indian hanging from a tree a hundred yards from his camp where a fire burns near a lean-to shelter that apparently the executioners never saw???


I'm glad the movie is getting the critical acclaim it richly deserves on the film making and acting fronts. The director, cinematographer and DiCaprio all deserve Oscar considerations. Still, I was unmoved and bored much of the time. A movie like this should have drawn me in and made me feel something. The realism certainly made me cringe several times but it wasn't an emotional response at all. Not all movies make you feel, some are just good time spectacles - but this story should have made an emotional impact and it didn't.


3 of 5 stars


CW

Joy

I went to see Joy for two reasons - Jennifer Lawrence and Jennifer Lawrence with Bradley Cooper. I think Lawrence is a great actress. She's a chameleon, she's able to pour herself into any role and make you believe. That's what a great movie actor does. In the movies she's starred with Bradley Cooper she has been marvelous. He is always good.

Her performance in Silver Linings Playbook was only exceeded by her extreme character in American Hustle. Her other work in major pictures like X-Men and the Hunger Games has also been very good. Considering she's really only been in the majors since 2011 she's accomplished quite a lot. Bradley Cooper, well - he is always good.

That brings us to "Joy". Right off I will say it's not in the same league with Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. That does not mean it's not good at all. The story just isn't strong or possibly the pacing is a little off.

There was the requisite conflict and tension, but it never felt like the stakes were that high. I guess I found her relationship with her ex-husband to be so ridiculous that it bothered me. The character played by Di Nero was so derivative of all his work that it was also not in the least enhancing to the story in my opinion. If once Di Nero played his part with a different attitude it would be so astonishing I'd put him up for an Oscar myself.

It's a story of a woman who had a tinkerer's brain but found herself mugged by a life she could never get ahead of - the story of a lot of us, right - and how she finally rose above it. I assumed it was based on a true story, at least it really seemed that way. Joy 'invents' the self-wringing mop and by some minor miracle gets it on QVC home shopping TV.

I mentioned pacing earlier, I think that's what kept me from getting roped in and really feeling this movie. The very best parts of the movie were the scenes where Cooper and Lawrence were together, and there were too few of them. There was no guy gets the girl in the end, which may be a horrible cliche, but you almost longed for something to give the movie a heart.

The conclusion of the movie was probably the most unsettling, it was like the director said "ok guys let's wrap it up". There was no context given of how she ended up in the big backed chair holding all the cards.

Joy is certainly not a total flop. Parts of it were well done and well acted. I think the script was pretty weak and the direction was limp. In the end it needed more Cooper time because the Lawrence/Cooper combo shines.


2 of 5 stars


CW

Hughes&Kettner Tubmeister 36

Obviously a guitar amp is not something everyone needs - or would ever need - but this is a review site and as it happens I needed a new guitar amp. Today we're looking at the German designed, Chinese made Hughes&Kettner Tubmeister 36.

I gravitated toward this model for the features and on the strength of the 'sound' I heard at a live show this summer. There were two guitar players using essentially the same type of guitar, one had an H&K on his side of the stage and the other a Mesa Boogie on his. I was shocked that I was attracted to the H&K sound song after song. I left that show conflicted and more than a little curious.

So, after much research and soul searching (namely the amp I really wanted, the Mesa Boogie, cost more than twice as much) I put down $1150.00 on the VISA card for the H&K Tubmeister 36 and waited with eager anticipation for the UPS guy. Boy was I disappointed. It didn't sound anything like I had expected. It had literally no sound at all - it was deader than a door nail. The seller immediately shipped a new one and luckily this one actually turned on.

First I do not worry about having enough power - this 36 watt amp is strikingly loud. It's a nice sturdy, right-sized unit and it's not crazy heavy. The point of a small-ish combo amp is to be portable, with the Tubemeister 36 Combo you get the performance of a much, much bigger amp in a nice compact unit.

The Tubemeister 36 sounded great with my Les Paul - loved the clean channel and the crunch channel right off. The clean channel sounds absolutely sweet with the single coil Stratocaster pickups. However, the lead channel had a pronounced fizz to it that I had been warned about in other reviews. I quickly ordered a JJ retube kit to replace the Chinese tubes for about $90. Running cost now $1240.

The new tubes sound absolutely great! The crunch and lead channel sound smoother, warmer and there's just a hint of that fizz with gain turned way up on the lead channel. Often we make a mod, or swap out pickups and maybe hear a small positive change - these JJ tubes made a huge difference. It's a shame this rather spendy amp doesn't ship with the right tubes.

I am also surprised at how versatile the power soak feature is. I didn't think I would even use it, but it's a really great feature considering that I have a range of high output guitars and not so high output guitars.You can dial in 1, 5, 18 or the full 36 watts and get the full tube amp experience at any volume level. It also has a built in industry standard RedBox output for direct-in (no speaker) to the PA or recording console. I tried it and it works, but the sound is not exactly what you get going through a speaker and my ears preferred the speaker. In the studio we have the luxury of using a mic on the speaker.

In order to really use the great features and versatility of this amp a foot-switch is required. I bought the FSM-432 MKIII foot-switch for about $230. Running cost now $1470. The real point of getting this amp was to greatly simplify my set up. The MIDI switch allows me to set up my clean, heavy and lead sounds with a push of a button (in any combination of output power). The idea was to plug the guitar into the wah wah and that's it. Since the amp has a nice built-in reverb feature my set-up was now complete. Sweet.

Until... I had planned to use my Line 6 POD in the amp's built-in FX loop for additional effects. Great in theory. In reality it was a nightmare. The POD wasn't designed for this role so I ended up at Guitar Center buying a Boss Chorus to go with my Boss Super Overdrive and a stompbox rail to hold them along with the Cry Baby Mini wah wah. This set me back another $135. Running cost was now $1605.

So rather than a sweet simple set up of two small units on the floor instead of an array of stomp boxes that I couldn't keep straight playing rhythm and lead guitar the lead singing I have stompbox/foot-swtch rail over 3 feet long. Not what I wanted, but it works and sounds very good.

I was really disappointed that the first unit they shipped was bad after reading a few reviews that questioned the reliability of H&K stuff. Others reviews said they never had a problem... It was probably just a blown fuse after all. I was also disappointed that I had to replace the tubes on day one to get it to reach it's full potential. Tubes get replaced, that's not a show stopper.

After spending over $1600.00 on this rig which is modest by high end standards I really like the sound I'm getting. The Tubmeister 36 is definitely in the Vox class A camp more than it is in the Marshall Plexi or the Mesa Modern Hi-gain camps. The tone of this tube amp sparkles on clean channel and I prefer it to the classic Fender clean sounds, it's clearly a more hi-fi than a Fender. The versatility of this amp makes it a best of all worlds bargain. Yes, Mesa Boogie, Marshall, Vox and Fender are the standard bearers for their specific types of tones in non-boutique amps, but the Tubmeister 36 straddles all of them in one small competent package.

4 of 5 stars


CW

Shark Navigator

The Shark vacuum phenom is something I never expected to comment on. I had a series of cheap 49.95 Royal Dirt Devil bag-less vacuums that worked decently for many years. You know it's a vacuum cleaner - a necessary tool but who the hell cares, really.

A few years ago the Dyson vacuums hit the scene and all the upper middle income people had to have one. While I'm sure they work very well, they look cool and they're European which makes them better from the get go, they're vacuum cleaners - necessary tools but who the hell cares. Besides they are obscenely priced, you know European stuff like BMW's and Mercedes Benz's are just so much better and that justifies the price. Needless to say I am never going own a Dyson.

When the 3rd Dirt Devil died we found ourselves looking at the pricey vacuum cleaners at the bed and bath store. Like I said the Dyson was ridiculous upwards of $400, but next to it was a Shark Navigator for a buck seventy-nine. With the 30% discount my wife had we picked it up for around $135 I suppose.

It's a nice piece of work. It does a great job and has some really good features like the lift-away canister that more or less makes it into a portable. The brush feature can be turned off and used on hard wood floors and kitchen tile... and it has swivel steering. Pretty slick. The accessories are fairly standard and work well enough. The dust bucket empties easily - although I recommend doing it outside in the garbage can rather than the kitchen waste basket. All in all well worth the money we spent.

I like it enough to actually recommend it and even bought one as a gift. However, there is one thing that drives me crazy and makes me wonder how it ever left the design stage like this. The hose is absolutely terrible. It is so stiff and springy that it is made nearly useless. Every time you use the hose the vacuum unit falls to the floor or hits you - or worse knocks something over. It's only slightly better when used in portable mode and that's because you are holding the canister unit in your other hand. I honestly believe the designer never actually used the thing before sending it to production. Someone at Shark had to have noticed how bad this was.

The only way to manage it is to be acutely aware of the larger unit when you grab the hose for a quick aside during your cleaning activities. I have never had to worry about this sort of issue before and I think this is a serious mark against and otherwise stellar product.


3 of 5 stars


CW